My Solar System - an observation on Hari Raya Aidilfitri May 2022

 

We expected Eid on the third of May!  But the panic was felt most by all the Emak, Mama, Ibu, Mummy and Umi in Malaysia - the cooking, the children's outfits, the curtains and cushion covers to be changed, the sweeping and cleaning inside and outside the house, the cutlery, crockery, glasses, tablecloths to be laid out and on top of it all, the last minute shopping that had been planned for the last day of Ramadan.  

But we all know Mothers are superwomen!  They will see all this through no matter what.

I can recall two occasions when this happened - when Hari Raya fell on the day before the expected/scheduled date on the calendar.

It happened the first time when I was a young teacher in Sekolah Menengah Yusof Ishak / Yusof Ishak Secondary School, West Coast Road, Singapore during the late 1960s, sometime between 1967 and 1970.   On Hari Raya Day, all Malay and Muslim students (including those in the English medium) were allowed time to attend the Hari Raya prayers and they had then to report back to school as usual.  Their Hari Raya holiday would be officially celebrated on the second day of Hari Raya Aidil Fitri.

Well, the Malay-Muslim teachers in the school, all men, most of them older than this female in her early 20s turned to me and said, 

"Cikgu pergi lah jumpa Mr Lazaroo (the Principal) dan minta cuti satu hari untuk kita orang!" (Teacher, why don't you ask Mr Lazaroo (the Principal) for a day off (on Eid) for us?)

They forgot I am the bolshie/maverick AnaksiHamid and I replied very nicely, "Cikgu semua pergi lah sendiri minta rayuan Mr Lazaroo!"  (Teachers, why don't all of you make a plea to Mr Lazaroo?) That was the end of that.   Good try! To put my head on the block while they skulk in the background.   If it works, great for them.  If it doesn't, only Maznoor will be in the dog-house.  We shall just go home and and carry on, our record remains intact.  They would certainly say,  "Tak cuba, tak tahu" (If you don't ask, you will never know).   Except for my record, if it fails!!!!  Aaah, the early signs (for me) of Malay-Muslim-Males' strategy and tactics.   Hardly Malay Sun Tzu, but very typical.

So all we Malays and Muslims had to go by the book.  On Hari Raya all the teachers duly turned up after Prayers, but - bully for them - hardly any of the kids turned up at all.  They took the risk and were willing to face the consequences!  The bravery of youth - the young who are unaccountable to the boring mores and dregs of the old.

The second time occurred some ten years later in 1977 at the Chinese/English Integrated Jurong Secondary School, Corporation Road, Singapore.  I was as usual in the minority English stream.  But I was no pipsqueak!  I was now the Senior Assistant for the English Stream.  Mind you, it took me some years to get there.  Some or most of my peer group from Singapore University were Principals by now - despite my very extensive Curriculum Vitae and my post graduate qualification from London University.  But beggars can't be choosers, can they?

By the mid-1970s, the Malay (and Tamil) medium schools  in Singapore were dying out, as more and more parents decided to send their children to English schools.  The tail-end of the the Malay stream from Yusof Ishak Secondary were all shifted to Jurong - about 2-3 classes if my memory serves me well. When the Public holiday for Hari Raya Aidil Fitri (I cannot remember the exact year) fell on the second day of Hari Raya again, life and school went on as usual.  Hari Raya or no Hari Raya, Malays and Muslims reported for school after the Prayers.

In the next few days and a week or so after that, stories, snipings and grumbles were coming back to me, about how Miss Hamid (my nomenclature then in JSS, not Cikgu Maznoor as in Yusof Ishak), as a Muslim and the Senior Assistant, should have spoken up for them, especially the Malay medium section to give them concessions to celebrate Hari Raya in the full sense of the celebration - to grant them an additional 'Public Holiday' so to speak.  I left it alone until it became personal, very personal, and I feared a repetition of what happened to me in Yusof Ishak when they applied the tactic of "tak dapat dengan cara kasar, kita gunakan cara halus" (If we can't get you one way, we shall find a subtler way) 

I had to do what was then necessary to maintain the morale and administration of Jurong Secondary School- and with the permission of the Principal we had an emergency Staff Meeting to explain the policy of the School (and the Government ) about Hari Raya Public Holidays on the second day of Hari Raya.  I also asked that this should be explained to the pupils as well and that Miss Hamid does not have the power or the credentials to make adjustments to a government edict.

I had had enough of teaching in Singapore - whether in a Malay-English Integrated School (1967-1974) or in a Chinese-English Integrated School (1975-1977).  

I would soon have an interview for a teaching appointment in Brunei.   In February 1978, I left my Singapore teaching days for good.  Brunei was good to me (1978-1984) and by then Singapore had become merely a transit station for me.  By 1986 I had no more reasons to stay.

So Hari Raya 2022 brought back this septuagenarian's memorable moments of 'premature'  Hari Raya  days/daze!  

                                                          ----------------------------------------------------

It also sets her thinking of more ethereal and astronomical things like the sun and the moon and the stars and loved ones.

The moon is such a crucial feature in the life of a Malay-Muslim.  One of his  most significant religious activities like Ramadan and the festival of Eid is determined by the sighting of the moon.  Even the  word for 'month' is 'Bulan' which is the Moon.  Endless love songs and music and poems and novels have been written in honour of the moon.  Even the word for madness is derived from  ' lunacy' , an ailment connected to the transits of the moon.

An old Malay school poem comes to mind.

This is from my Primary School Malay textbook. "Beneh Akal" ( The seed of wisdom) when I was attending Pasir Panjang English School.

I loved these lines :  Bulan tanya pada bintang, (The moon asks of the stars)

                                 Mana jatoh mata hari. (Where does the sun set.)

This Hari Raya, I remember my moon and my sun.  (The title of this love song from the 1960s is "The moon enclosed by the stars")

My mother the moon and my father the sun on Hari Raya 1950,  at 680 Pasir Panjang Road,  Singapore.

                                                             --------------------------------------

Malam terang, nampak bayang, (The night is bright, the shadows are visible.)

Banyak bintang kawan bulan. (So many stars, so many friends of the moon.)

Emak with her 3 stars - the 4th (Mustakim) was still an infant, having a snooze inside the house.   Abah made those Hari Raya Stars.

                                                     ------------------------------------------------------------

But their second star, is so happy (over the moon!) to have this picture in her keeping.

Maznoor Abd Hamid celebrating her third Hari Raya at Kampung Chantek, off Dunearn Road.
The two stars were made by Abah!

                                                     ----------------------------------------------------------

Umpteen years later - many, many moons later - about 480 months later  and more - came this shooting star into AsH's life.

The shooting star is a streak of light in the sky orbiting round the moon.  At times he can be an asteroid (a small rocky body orbiting the sun) or a meteor (a space rock that enters the earth's atmosphere). 

Whatever he turns into, even when he's howling at the moon - he still draws great pictures for AnaksiHamid.

Eccentrics Extraordinaire.

                                             ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Selamat Hari Raya from long ago and far away.

=========================================================================                                    

PS :  Just a little reminder, just so that "pisang tidak berbuah dua kali"  or  "Once bitten, twice shy".

Another cut-and-paste Perfidy!!

Not too long ago I had to sort out a case of  'pilfering' of my personal photograph/images from my blog  AnaksiHamid.

See : https://anaksihamid.blogspot.com/2016/05/a-malay-malady-episode-2.html

.This cover of the spouse's book "Fatimah's Kampung" ......

....... had been corrupted into this .... by a  Homestay business in Malim Nawar. 

Aaaah, this is quite a demonstration of  business acumen for we 'lazy, indolent and unenterprising' Malays!   But in this beloved land of ours, worse has been done in the name of  'entrepreneurship' and audacious money-making.  In Malayan history, there have been many such people - petty-minded Malay wannabe businessmen too busy with their own little egos to challenge the incomers and make the Peninsula a world of their own and a world to be proud of.   It's truly a shame.

I was quite fortunate to discover that deceitful little gem during my wanderings on the Internet five years ago.  I am certain there are many more cases of pilfering and intrusions into my Blog and countless other sites.  After all, this is 21st century Malaysia/Singapore.  Integrity and probity lie very low on the ground, especially when aided by sophisticated technology and its highly qualified practitioners.

Many of my readers (both past and present), it seems, like my earlier postings about the stories of AsH growing up in the kampung (I spell it 'kampung' and not the Colonial affectation of 'kampong') in Singapore, like Kampung Chantek and Kampung Abu Kassim.  I have included in these postings some of the vast collection of my beloved Abah's black and white photographs which recorded lovingly his and his family's happy life.   In appreciation of his (and my mother's) life and love, I decided to  narrate in this blog the memoir of a Malay family in mid 20th century Singapore.  I was also impelled by the desire of my father's grandchildren  to learn more about their grandparents and parents as well.  I guess I was quite blissfully unaware of the growing trend and pecuniary interests of the Nostalgia Industry - especially in the city-state of Singapore, which has demolished the vast bulk of its heritage in the name of progress and economic development.  A land with virtually no tangible signs left of its non-colonial history can only resort and cling to the vestiges to be found in old books, documents and - especially - photographs.  

For instance, while the spouse and I were wandering around Leicestershire in the late 1980s we discovered in a little stamp shop this unbelievable Postcard of old Singapore, dated 25 May 1912.

Malay Shop Singapore - The name 'Albert' inserted on the card must have been written by either Albert in Darjeeling or his Grand Pa in Calcutta.  There must be a sweet story behind this communication between a young boy and his grandfather.

It was priced at £2.75 which was equivalent to about 2 return bus trips from our house to Leicester City Centre!

We went to Singapore just a few years later, and in an  upmarket Bookshop selling antiquarian books and nostalgia at Tanglin Shopping Centre, a postcard of almost similar age and condition as ours was priced at SGD$50 (late 1980s) !

I guess I'm beginning to sound like the typical Singaporean, obsessed with the query of "How much?".  

I'm afraid the spouse and I are also obsessed - with our affection for old things that remind us of our growing up years.  That includes books, postcards, comics, annuals, embroidery, vinyls, typewriters, gramophones and more books and postcards.  We often joke about how we have to part with them one day, to pay for a hip operation or a brain transplant!

They are a precious collection just like those much loved black and white photographs that my Abah left behind.  He did not leave us a legacy of land, property, business holdings, stocks and shares and antique cars.     Just those photographs, happy memories, and a good education.     These are not the sort of things we would sell for a hip operation.    These are my most personal nostalgia, my most personal heritage, my history and identity.      They are not for sale.     They are not to be abused by people for their own pecuniary and self-serving designs.

So where is all this leading?     Well, a few days ago,my brother Mus passed on this link to me from YouTube titled Part 2 Lost Kampongs in Singapore.

I - Click on this video and at 0.01 you will find this picture at Figure 1

Figure 1 - This photo by my father had been coloured and defaced and abused.

Now go to .......

1.  https://anaksihamid.blogspot.com/2013/08/vestiges-of-hari-raya-and-kampung.html

Figure 2 - My Abah's original photograph (1)

 

2.  https://anaksihamid.blogspot.com/2016/05/a-malay-malady-episode-2.html

Figure 3 - My Abah's original photograph (2)

3.  https://anaksihamid.blogspot.com/2010/09/kampung-to-kampung.html

Figure 4 - My Abah's original photograph (3)

4.  And here is my own map of the location of our house at Kampung Abu Kassim.

Figure 5 - My map of Kampung Abu Kassim

II.  Click on the above video at 2.27 and you will find this picture at Figure 6.

Figure 6 - This photograph belonging to my father had also been desecrated like Figure 1, but in a very despicable way.

Firstly:  Sarafian Salleh, the provider of the said YouTube video, a Singaporean Malay and an Australian University graduate in Mechanical Engineering who I had previously never heard of, has appropriated this photograph as his - by inserting his name in the image (see the yellow rectangle).     But this image has been and always will be a photograph taken by my father - a Minang man by the name of Abdul Hamid bin Jala.    It was not taken by, and has never been in the possession of, Sarafian Salleh.... or his father Incik Salleh......or anybody else on this planet.

So this photograph was never in the keeping of Sarafian Salleh and his family.  It is a photograph treasured and lovingly looked after by Maznoor binti Abdul Hamid (AsH) and her mother Kamisah binti Suboh since 1949 when AsH was just five years old.

Who,by the way,  is Sarafian Salleh?

Sarafian Salleh also goes into my my blog, signs up as a Follower, then he vandalises and filches my family photographs to promote his image as a guardian of Singapore's 'nostalgia' especially that of the Malays.  That's entrepreneurship par excellence that is reputed to be a feature of Singapore's success. 

Secondly, Lorong Abu Hassan (the yellow elliptical shape) is a name that, as far as I know, does not exist at Pasir Panjang. It is quite laughable had it had not been for the fact that this video is so abjectly grimy.

                                                                                                                                     

 Now let's check Abdul Hamid's original photographs.

1.  https://anaksihamid.blogspot.com/2017/06/a-hari-raya-enhanced-by-singaporeans.html

Figure 7 - The Selamat Hari Raya Banner  and the Two Stars were drawn and made by Abdul Hamid, by my Abah's loving and hard work.

2.  https://anaksihamid.blogspot.com/2013/08/vestiges-of-hari-raya-and-kampung.html

Figure 8 - The clothes on the washing line (to the right) certainly belong to Kamisah's family and nobody else in Singapore or in any other part of the Nusantara.

3.  https://anaksihamid.blogspot.com/2009/10/kampung-abu-kassim-pasir-panjang.html

Figure 9 - Enough said!

Conclusion

When I clicked on that "Part 2 Lost Kampong" video by Sarafian Salleh, I could not believe my eyes.  The brazen plagiarism and appropriation of my family photographs are quite appalling.  As I watched it right to the end, I noticed that credit was given to various names, sources and organisations for the use of their images.

Figure 10

  

Figure 11

But there was no mention or reference to Anaksihamid.blogspot.com .

My response ranged from anger to disgust to contempt.

How very Singaporean I thought.  How very Singaporean-Malay, I shuddered,

In Malaysia I had to deal with a  Homestay kampung-entrepreneur who purloined lock, stock and barrel the spouse's book cover of Fatimah's Kampung'.

However this video by Sarafian Salleh takes the cake for another reason.     It reveals a kind of 'electronic' chicanery which one would expect had long been wiped out in an efficient, hardworking, enterprising, smart and clean Singapore.

Sikap gaya alah sayang pendekar putri.

Bertepok tangan amboi tangan, tanda berani.

Tiada gentar alah sayang, hai membela diri,

Addendum

I hate to have to post such a posting - yet again.  Seperti meludah ke langit.  (It's like spitting at the sky).

Konon- nya orang Melayu adalah serumpun.

Footfalls echo in the memory ..........

Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden.  My words echo
Thus, in your mind.
                                    But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
I do not know.
                                     Other echoes
Inhabit the garden.  Shall we follow?

(From 'Burnt Norton', No 1 of  "Four Quartets" by T.S. Eliot, 1888-1965)

The memory of Akim's passing ( 37 years ago) lives on much longer than the life he was given (33 years)  as a beloved son, brother and uncle in AsH's family.

He would have been 70 two days ago and today on the first of May, I recall this song that he used to play at our Boon Lay flat.  "Guess who cried come first of May."

T.S. Eliot's 'Burnt Norton' started with ...

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.

1949 - The baby of the family.

 .

'Time past' when there were four of us plus Abah and Mak ..... and later only Mak after December 1974.

'......... and what has been/ Point to one end, which is always present/ Footfalls echo in the memory.....'

Al Fatihah  Mustakim bin Abdul Hamid.

It has been 37 years and I miss you still.

The great business of life is to be, to do, to do without, and to depart. 
(John Morley, 1838-1923)

Chermin Maznah by Pakcik Agus

It was my one and only sister's birthday yesterday.  This is my tribute to her for what she has accomplished as a daughter, a sister, a sister-in-law, a wife, mother and grandmother.

In 1953, she received a fantastic gift of a poem written in her Autograph Book.  It was lovingly and beautifully composed by  Pakcik Agus, a Minang man and a good friend of Abah.

Cpl Jamaludin from Klang, flanked on his right and left by two Minang men.

For my sister and I, a birthday is just another day.  Our generation gave scant notice and celebration for the day we were born.  But now that we are getting closer to our eighties, we tend to reflect on what  has been.  Charlotte Bronte's statement comes close to what we feel about getting older.

AsH is not impressed by the present but the past means a lot to her.

A gap of nearly 50 years for two sisters.

More and more years under the bridge.  We now have Abah's and Emak's first, second and third generation.  We have also added two Buchanans to our clan.  What a grand family we have!

But I have to return to Pakcik Agus'  declamation -a  poignant and touching wish from the heart for the next generation.

And here he expresses the hope and expectations of parents - and especially Malay parents.

This posting is not just about Chermin Maznah by Agus Karimudin for Maznah Abdul Hamid.

Have we Malays done our duty and our best ?

"Melihat keturunan ku berjaya maju.
Habis riwayatku meninggalkan tauladan.
Jadi ikutan bangsa dan keturunanku."



Noraka  kutakuti, Sorga ku Kenang.
Ku maju dan modern, ku jaga marwahku.

That is why my memory "retains vividly those of earlier years."

Ruth - a matchless woman

RUTH - sometime in the early 1940s.

We have one thing in common, Ruth and I.  We are incorrigible magpies.  Amongst many,many other things, she collected match box labels.

Been feeling a bit down lately - people (well, some) tend to do that to me and to make it worse,  there have been much too much of Malaysia Baru and the strong odour of Malayan Union Mark 2 blowing in the air.

So I decided to indulge myself; ferreting through my own magpie nest - as a form of therapy.  We have been keeping this little basket box (woven by Ruth herself)  ........

Ruth's treasure of matchbox tops.

....... containing her collection of matchbox tops, acquired over a period of nearly 50 years.  It was passed on to us by Bride after Ruth passed away in 2009.  Once or twice I  rummaged through this collection and did not realise what a treasure they were until just a few days ago.  I was flabbergasted by the age and the variety of samples she had been storing.  They were all her personal collection covering the period of her life as a wife and mother from perhaps the 1950s onwards.   Her family life stretched from home in England to Wales ......

Iain, Ruth, Bride, Keith and Jane in Wales where Iain learned to pronounce LLANFAIRPWLLGWYNGYLLGOGERYCHWYRNDROBWLLLLANTYSYLIOGOGOGOCH  in one go.

...........  South Africa, West Africa, Northern Ireland, and finally in New Zealand where they eventually settled.  These match tops also covered her travels in Australia, Hong Kong, Fiji, Malaya and Singapore in the 1960s.

Ruth was only doing what that generation of children were encouraged to do.  Born in 1915, she was taught to observe, conserve and respect nature - all 'creatures great and small' which also included trees and grass and seashells.  That generation had hobbies and interests which were self-made and did not cost any money at all.  That was why she was such a skilled knitter and showed her love by spending hours on knitting projects for family and friends.  She lived according to a "waste not, want not" ethos, which was also expected of us by our mother.

A hand-knitted Cushion Cover - from Ruth to her daughter-in-law.

Iain's Cushion Cover.  Ruth had knitted a coconut tree next to Maznoor and an apple tree next to her son.  Her children call her Haggis - the reason for that is lost on me.

Winter slippers for Iain.  My pair is still up in the loft in Leicester -I'm too decrepit to retrieve it.

52, Tilley Road, Paekakariki, where she lived from 1953 to 2007 when she became too frail to manage by herself. This house was Ruth's humongous magpie's nest and where she did her gardening, knitting, basket weaving, textile collage and umpteen handicraft creations.

I can hear her voice saying, "Come on, Maznoor.  Stop this nattering.  I want to see what you've done with my match top labels!".

Here they are.  If I were still a school teacher, I would ask my geography pupils to note down   the various countries of origin and then indicate them on a world map - but only for schoolchildren of 40 years ago.  Today's kids who are merely computer-literate will not have the foggiest idea on where to begin!

But just three hours before I embarked on this soul-enhancing posting, I decided to look in the kitchen drawer for my matches.

Firstly as expected, I found this one from Giant which I matched with a brand I remembered from the 1960s.

 But this is the creme de la creme.  What an unbelievable coincidence!!

We have here - Safety Matches and Macis Keselamatan.  One costs 5 cents, the other 20 sen.  The one made in Petaling Jaya  has an inscription in Jawi.  The 'modern' match  came from Taiping.  This makes for a 'matching' historical comparison!

Ruth, we've hit the Jackpot!!!!!!  These are matches for our (different) times.

We managed to match 1986 with 2018.  Thank you for lighting the matches along the way.

My mother-in-law always gave away gifts that are handcrafted and associated with her hobbies and came from her own magpie nest.

This gift of a new book on shells was very different and especially touching for the inscription she wrote.

Aaaahh I do feel much better after writing this posting though I still want to ......??.

Thank you Ruth.